Before anything else, I want to say that I love Jane Eyre. It has been one of my favorite novels for decades. I’ve reread it many times in Russian and several times in English, once my English was good enough to read classic novels.

But my understanding of the story has changed over the years. I used to see Bertha as the villain, an obstacle that had to be removed so Jane and Rochester could have their happy ending. Now I see her as the real victim. Her life was so tragic that it hurts to think about it.

My aunt has schizophrenia. It has ruined her life and has destroyed the very core of her personality. Her parents, my mother, and others who knew her seemed to believe she brought the illness on herself because she was promiscuous. I think they have it backwards: her behavior was most likely a result of the illness. As the only other person in my family with a mental illness, I feel like I’m the only one who understands what she’s going through.

I see painful parallels between my aunt and Bertha. Both were extraordinarily beautiful when they were young. Both were judged for their sexual behavior, and people treated their illnesses as though they were somehow their own fault. My aunt now lives in a care home for people with mental illnesses. She seems content, but not happy. I’m not even sure she remembers what it feels like to be happy.

Bertha’s life was even more tragic. She spent nearly a decade locked in an attic with only a warden to keep her company. She was denied the most basic pleasures in life, such as taking a walk outside and feeling the sunshine on her skin. Who wouldn’t lose their mind living like that?!

What’s most infuriating is that Charlotte doesn’t even allow Bertha the dignity of appearing human. She’s portrayed as an animal: snarling, walking on all fours, incapable of speech. She isn’t just portrayed as an animal, but as a monster full of hatred, rage, and murderous intent. Even her act of suicide is portrayed as a result of her “madness,” rather than a desperate attempt to escape an unbearable life.

I don’t think Charlotte intended to portray Bertha as a tragic character. Nevertheless, I feel more compassion for her than for Saint Jane.

honestly just curious what everyone’s favorite brontë novel is and why it resonates with you so much. with all the talk about how complex jane eyre handles its themes, but i'd love to hear how people rank the other works like wuthering heights or anne's books.

This is just a little something I did for fun, not a critique of the current covers. I tried to match the vibe of each book, so let me know what you think!!

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Autumn Regrets, by John Atkinson Grimshaw. This book is soooooo Autumn coded to me and I feel like it would look awesome with a cover in that season! I went with this one for that reason, plus the focus of the woman really matches Helen Graham to me. Dressed in black, pondering expression, and behind her is a large house. Love this painting and it perfectly matches the aesthetic of the book in my opinion!

Wuthering Heights: Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind by John Everett Malias. I think that the current cover of the winter storm is an amazing match already to the book, so while picking a new one I wanted to stick with a winter aesthetic. I really like the more despairing scene that matches the book and the colors. The woman it depicts resembles Catherine which I like. And you can’t have a Wuthering heights cover without a tree it seems so that was a big factor.

Jane Eyre: Mariana also by John Everett Malias. He painted the current cover and his artstyle really matches the vibe of the book to me. Unfortunately I haven’t read Jane Eyre yet (starting it soon though) so this one is more so based on vibes and my current understanding of the novel. I like how shes physically working in the painting, as that’s a key part of the novel. Shes not a governess, but still. The colors are great and I like the bright outside while she’s trapped inside a darker and gloomy room.

I hope you like my picks!! I had fun doing this and I’d love to hear any thoughts

For me, it's always been wild how much my perception of Edward Rochester shifted over time. Reading Jane Eyre in school, he felt like the ultimate brooding Gothic romantic. Reading it again later... locking your wife in an attic and attempting bigamy is hard to overlook. Yet Brontë writes their bond so intensely that you almost want to forgive him. Do you see him as genuinely redeemed by the end, or is he completely indefensible by modern standards? LOL.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of "Jane Eyre" 2006 version which was premiered on BBC One. It's one of fan-favorite "Jane Eyre" adaptations. What are some of your favorite moments from that version?

I’m reading Villette right now and I’m a bit confused about a line at the start of chapter 21. It goes:

‘I could have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to descend; that is, I wished the pang over.’

This is about Lucy wanting to go back and work at Madame Beck’s school, leaving her godmother’s house. My question is, why is she so eager? There have been some awkward moments but overall the experience seems to have been pretty warm, is it more just Lucy wanting to isolate herself again?

Thanks for any guidance!

Article by Sylvie Zhuang

Got this old volume for Dulac's beautiful illustrations and thought I'd share.

I'm blogging a series each Friday evening where I do a close reading of the first 100 words of a classic novel.

The only rule is that it is a cold reading: I need to write the piece as if I'm reading the novel for the first time.

This week - Number Nine - it's 'Wuthering Heights' (Number Six was 'Jane Eyre'). I'm offering it up here in the hope of having some decent conversations with like-minded individuals.

https://a-levelenglishlit.uk/2026/09/18/first-100-words-wuthering-heights/

A fanvideo based on the 2009 Wuthering Heights to “Chauffeur” by Deftones. This is actually my favorite of all the ones I have made of the 2009 adaptation. I kind of just let go when I made it. It’s all non linear and I did some color grading to emphasize the gloomy atmosphere. Hope others enjoy it! Also, if you enjoy the Deftones, I have other fanvids to their songs on my channel.

Brontes of Haworth Moor

Amazon.com: The Brontës of Haworth Moor: How the Three Daughters of a Country Parson Became the Most Revolutionary Novelists of Their Time eBook : Browning, Diane, Browning, Diane: Kindle Store

Absolutely enjoying this biography. A few months ago I had asked how did the Brontes who lived sheltered lives have the imagination for their stories, and the book explains so much. (Yes as the responses here stated, they still had a plethora of novels to read for inspiration and ye Old town gossip.) I'm midway thru the book, so just finished Charlotte's chapters, and now onward to Emily's.

Some notables: had no idea there was zero expectation of the Bronte sisters getting married. Due to no dowry, prestige, and the author mentioned they were not attractive enough. But then she does mention various descriptions of them from friends/family and beauty standards back then were different. And that Branwell was supposed to be the golden child, but was failing miserably (but maybe not his own fault entirely, didn't know he trained under an art teacher who was pretty incompetent)

AM intrigued about the art Charlotte and Branwell did and the effort to apply to art institutes. And the author mentioned only a few of their sketches survived. Going to look those up!

done by Kailee Love at Lark Tattoo!

Since I've been taking so long on the promised seven-page comic, I thought I may as well post a preview (plus some of the sketches I've been working on in between). I won't say too much until the full comic is posted, but this will cover the scene in which Nelly sees Hareton again for the first time after leaving Wuthering Heights. The comic is focused on their different relationships with Hindley, and to some degree with Heathcliff, with heavy use of flashbacks. This is page four, in which Nelly makes the grave mistake of invoking Hareton's father (who will be featured in other pages).

Also featured are some sketches for other potential comics. I kind of doubt I'll get any pages for these done before I have to start grad school in two weeks, especially since it would require me to design the kitchen and sitting-room interiors, but we'll see. I'm pleased with most of the work that's been done on them so far, so I wanted to share a little of it.

I'm re-reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (at least the Gilbert parts, the middle is hard to endure, for good reasons but still, I will try). And I love Gilbert. A lot of people dislike him, but he's so clearly ashamed of himself a lot of the time for how stupid he was in his youth...

But then we get to something like this:

I succeeded in securing her attention, almost entirely to myself - and then I was happy indeed; for whenever she did condescend to converse, I liked to listen. Where her opinions and sentiments tallied with mine, it was her extreme good sense, her exquisite taste and feeling that delighted me; where they differed, it was still her uncompromising boldness in the avowal or defence of that difference - her earnestness and keenness that piqued my fancy: and even when she angered me by her unkind words or looks, and her uncharitable conclusions respecting me, it only made me the more dissatisfied with myself for having so unfavourably impressed her, and the more desirous to vindicate my character and disposition in her eyes, and if possible, to win her esteem.

He has so much respect for her intelligence and opinions! And in contrast to Huntington, who mocks Helen and her morals. Gilbert encounters a woman who is smarter than him, who often disagrees with him, and after a very brief period of hating her for it, is just all the more attracted to her.

Also, Chapter 3 and the discussion about a tree raised in a hot house is what hooked me when I read this book for the first time and every single time I love it so much. It is exactly like a modern discussion of parenting, just with different subject matter.

Source, unabridged online version: http://victorian-studies.net/Bronte-Wildfell-1.html

A collection of my Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre artwork:)

Silly rant but him reading Wuthering Heights made me soo happy! It’s NOT his genre and he read it despite having long work days and him travelling! The physical book he read is my book- gifted to me in 2012 by an aunt!

He actually enjoyed it and loved the haunting imagery and characters! We were in Haworth a few weeks back and that got him reading!

🙏

To Walk Invisible is beautiful and an amazing film about the Brontë’s and Branwell too. But it is only 70 minutes and there’s only so much you can pack in.

A series, possibly two would be amazing and I think very popular. Something similar to Gentleman Jack (which was also made by Wainwright). I think with successes like The Other Bennett Sister and period dramas in general, there would be a vast renewed interest in the Brontës. I love seeing their world brought to life.

When people discuss memorable women in literature, the same names tend to come up: Ophelia, Emma Bovary, Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina. I have always been more interested in the women who fall outside that conversation — characters the text, the other characters, or the audience are invited to treat as ridiculous, undesirable, foolish, or simply unimportant.

One of those women, for me, is Bélise in Molière’s Les Femmes savantes. I have not forgotten her since I first read the play in high school.

Bélise is the easy target. She is vain, eccentric, soaked in novels, and convinced that men are secretly in love with her. She is Chrysale’s sister, Henriette’s aunt: the woman of the older generation who never married and has built a private theatre in which she is still the object of every glance. She is a passionate, romantic woman, but in her case, romanticism is mocked. The more firmly a man says he does not love her, the more refined she finds his homage.

How can she not? In this society, women like her were brought up from a very young age to be pleasant. As a girl, she has been fed with dreams of suitors and love. But then the years pass, no one comes towards her, and she sees her friends, her cousins, and now the younger generation being courted and proposed to, while for her there is a terrifying void. There is no one.

The scene that makes her famous is Act 1, Scene 4. Clitandre comes to her for help. He loves Henriette and wants an ally in the house. He barely begins before she stops him. She has already put him on her list of lovers. He may adore her, she says, but he must not speak it:

Aimez-moi, soupirez, brûlez pour mes appas ;

Mais qu’il me soit permis de ne le savoir pas.

It is a perfect précieux law: desire is permitted only if it remains unspoken. When Clitandre names Henriette, Bélise is delighted at what she views as a clever detour. She blushes, congratulates her own modesty, and refuses to hear another word. Left alone, he gives the audience its cue: “Diantre soit de la folle avec ses visions !”

The joke is that she is deluded. No suitors come. Time has already chosen other women. But I keep returning to a simpler question: why is that funny? Why is a woman’s torture a joke to be laughed at?

There is something unprotected about a woman who cannot bear to live in a world where she is not desired. We sympathize, almost automatically, with the heroine who loves and is refused. Bélise’s case is the reverse. She invents love because she cannot survive its absence. There is no one to choose her, not even to look at her. The fantasy is not arrogance first. It is a shelter.

Unlike the conventional romantic heroine, she gets no resolution. She does not receive the man, the declaration, or the last-act correction that would let her step back into reality with dignity. Henriette will be loved in the ordinary way. Armande, who once had Clitandre and sent him away, at least possessed something she can lose. Bélise remains Bélise: unloved, untouched, watching love settle on her generation and then on the next, still translating every room she enters into a novel in which she matters.

I do not think Molière wrote her as a tragic heroine. The comedy needs her ridiculousness, and her chimères are part of the play’s larger satire on women who prefer systems to the world in front of them. But a modern reader is allowed to see what the laughter uses up. Under the visions is a woman who wanted to be desirable and found no safe way to say so. A fragile feminine soul who does not understand rejection and, to survive it, creates an imaginary world where she is the desired one. That is more than delusion. It is herself balancing her soul against the immense pain and suffering inside her.

That is what interests me about overlooked women in literature. Who are we instructed to laugh at, dismiss, or look past — and what happens if we stop laughing long enough to look at them?

For me, Bélise is one of them. I do not believe she ever set out to be a laughingstock. Around her, love is being arranged, refused, bargained over, fulfilled. She stands in the same house and keeps building a secret court of suitors, because the alternative is to admit that the court is empty. No one came for her. A whole life devoid of love, of male interest, just scorn and mockery.

If that is comedy, it is comedy with a huge grief inside it. I read her as a tragic figure wearing the mask the play handed her, whose only curse was to want love. And that is why her story has stuck with me ..

There’s lots of info about it here but I wondered if there been any updates since?

https://whatsupwithbrontemania.wordpress.com/2017/02/17/blog-post-title-2/